The serial: Largie Castle, A Rifled Nest Day 9

They swore they had second sight and could see fairies and the little men of soil, moor, tree and glade. However, all Highlanders could lay that claim

Afew days previously in preparation for the journey, I had investigated its history and discovered my mother was incorrect in assuming the statue was a monument to a drowned boy. A London builder had erected it to remind him of the happy holidays he had spent as a child playing there by the water. Tragedy had attacked my mother and her family so forcibly, that it was natural for her to put the worst complexion on what she saw in the water. It was many years before I learned that her brother had died twice.

But Mummy was proud and resilient. Doubtless her strength came from the knowledge that she was born into a long line of Macdonalds. Although our branch can trace its roots back to 1164, it was almost 300 years later that Ranald Bane, grandson of John Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, struck lucky.

He was an excellent soldier, like many of his descendants and, after serving his chieftain in 1431 at the Battle of Inverlochy, he became Largie’s first laird, on receiving a large area of land on the Kintyre peninsula in the south-west Highlands. The family still owns some of the original property. Confidence This sense of belonging and stability gave my mother confidence. Freighted by generations of Macdonald ancestry, she knew who she was, and, similar to the giant Californian redwood or old English oak, her roots were deep.

Sad-eyed, dark and Celtic in appearance, she possessed an instinctive knowledge of the land around her. Her older sister, Elizabeth (or Douna as she was usually called) adopted many traditional Highland habits and country pursuits.

She span Cheviot wool, collecting lichens from rocks on the shore to make natural dyes. She also bred spaniels and, when she became engaged to Henry Rogers, a young clergyman, she rushed to a neighbour and held out her bloody left hand (she had just skinned a rabbit) to show off her expensive emerald and diamond engagement ring.

Like native Americans or Australian Aborigines, Mummy and Douna communed with native spirits and were conversant with local legend.

Living among the heather, hills and tides of the sea, they tracked animals, caught herring and, by sniffing the air, could tell when the rain, mist or storms were approaching. They tasted young nettle-tips and sorrel growing by the ditches, chewed rosehips and haws, and popped between their fingers fuschia buds.

They swore they had second sight and could see fairies and the little men of soil, moor, tree and glade. However, all Highlanders could lay that claim: from John, their well-educated father to Rob, the butler who was convinced a fairy had snaffled his butter knives with mother of pearl handles, that he stored in a leather covered box lined in maroon velvet. ‘The Broonie’ was the offender; he had a room,

‘seomar bhrunaidh’ in Gaelic, at the top of the Largie tower. This Highland fairy was the Macdonald’s familiar spirit or aide. Tactful The Broonie or ‘uruisg’ was popular in folklore and every large house or castle in Scotland had one. In appearance he was small with a wrinkled face; he had brown, curly hair and wore a brown tunic and hood. He was partial to dairy products but the family was tactful in the way they presented them. Servants left him bowls of cream and chunks of cheese in discreet places beside the dairy door or in a kitchen corner.

The Macdonalds’ protector was temperamental. Once he was in such a temper that he hurled from his home on Cara a huge stone that landed on the mainland at Beachara, near Largie. But if the Macdonalds played their cards well and ’got on the Broonie‘s right side,’ he was obliging.

When a nursemaid fell asleep while she was in charge of an infant, the Broonie pinched her sharply on her earlobe. Being shy, the Highland fairy liked to perform tasks at night while everyone was in bed. He would mop the scullery floor and even wring out the washing. He was quick to take offence and if the cream was sour, the cheese mouldy, or someone tried to trap him into speaking to them, he would threaten to desert the family.

During most seasons the Broonie vanished, but, come harvest-time soon after hay-making, he was helpful. Unlike other harvesters, he never bound his sheaves with rope. Yet, the greatest storm failed to blow the straw away.

The Largie Broonie knew all about the sea. More than domestic duties, work in the byre, or in the fields, he was a maritime aide. All West Highland chieftains were good sailors and to prove it the Macdonald coat of arms has four symbols; one is a boat. The Broonie helped these sailors by changing the wind in their favour especially if a Macdonald was being chased by the enemy, a Campbell.

He guarded the water between the mainland and Cara, the Macdonald’s island situated one kilometre south of Gigha. The only Scottish island still in the possession of descendants of the ‘Lord of the Isles,’ Cara, meaning ‘dearest’ or ‘dear one,’ is the Broonie’s domain. A mere three-quarters of a mile long and half a mile wide, Cara has a house built in 1730 of two storeys with a slate roof and an attic. Secret wish Formerly, it was let to a junior member of the family who paid rent to the laird. Latterly, until 1930 when it was abandoned, a shepherd lived there. Forty years later, an enterprising Glasgow architect bought the building and renovated it.

Because of Cara’s strategic position between Scotland and Ireland, the house in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was used to survey the sea for smugglers.

At the island’s south end is a large rock formation, the Broonie’s chair. If a visitor sits on it and makes a secret wish, it is granted.

For several centuries the Broonie’s sole companions were a herd of feral goats, descendents of castaways from the Spanish Armada. In 1588 after Francis Drake routed the Spanish fleet off the southern English coast, several galleys were blown off course, some fetching up in north-westerly waters off Scotland’s Kintyre coast.

Did the Broonie help to run the ships aground? We know he intervened with the wind, becalmed waters, and even commanded full force gales, in order to dash enemy ships against the rocks or sink them. (More tomorrow.)